Yakima County finance director outlines six-year planning, personnel ‘drift’ model and new coordination framework

Brian Carlson, Yakima County financial services director, briefed the Board on proposed long-range financial-planning policies, a new stakeholder coordination structure, and an analytical model he calls “DRIFT” to quantify automatic personnel-cost increases.

Carlson framed the long-range plan as a six-year view that aligns capital-improvement planning with budgeting and fund-balance targets. “The primary features of long range planning is that it’s meant to provide a 6 year forward looking view,” Carlson said, adding that fund-balance targets should be justified with reasons, not formulas alone.

Carlson described a procedural calendar that ties budget close dates, audited books and the annual budget cycle together so departments and elected offices work from the same datasets. He said the approach is intended to “agree to the data so that we can then have spirited disagreement about what we might do about it.”

On inter-office coordination, Carlson proposed a “five families” meeting structure (criminal justice/public safety; community stakeholders; administrative/first floor; public works; and commissioners) as an alternative or supplement to the historical Budget Elected Team (BET) meetings. He said the proposal would bring relevant offices together to surface cross-cutting impacts before the Board’s appropriation decisions.

Carlson also presented personnel spending as roughly one third of county operations and described personnel as “the problem; it’s also the solution.” He showed high-level budget figures indicating Yakima County’s 2025 budget is “just north of $100,000,000” for the funds reviewed, and that personnel expense historically splits roughly 60% for salaries and 40% for benefits. Carlson noted health-insurance renewals are “a wild card” and that retirement and salary-driven costs move predictably with step increases and formulas.

To quantify automatic increases, he introduced DRIFT, which models how an adopted roster and full-employment budget will rise year over year even without off-schedule actions because of cost-of-living adjustments, anniversary step increases, retirement formulas and insurance. He gave a simple example: a 3% drift on a $100 million base equals about $3 million in additional cost.

Commissioners discussed trade-offs in multi-year planning and whether multi-year targets could constrain future elected boards; Carlson responded that long-range plans give future officials “a line of sight to what they’re inheriting” rather than tying their hands. Commissioner Curtis asked for future analysis distinguishing mandated services from optional services; Carlson said that topic and a prioritization framework are planned for coming meetings. An identified staff member, Judy, was mentioned as already maintaining related spreadsheets for tracking personnel and drift.

No formal action was taken; the presentation was described as orientation and a foundation for subsequent, more detailed briefings to the Board and stakeholder groups.